poetess wrote:A single man doesn't get to rewrite the rules by using pornography, and an infertile couple doesn't get to rewrite the rules by going outside the marriage to conceive children.

I am not going outside marriage to conceive a child; I am using medical treatment within a marriage.

My FIL had liver cancer and required a deceased donor (he needed a full liver, not a partial transfer like with a living donor). He received a transplant a little over a year ago. Did that commoditize his life and organs too much? Should he have just died because he introduced a foreign body into his life and marriage? Did the fact that there were financial costs associated with his treatment mean that everyone was a filthy and corrupt prostitute, serving lucre and not the greater good?

People sell plasma. Should we, then, ban all plasma and platelets used in surgery? Should we ban blood transfusions? Some people even sell organs. Should we ban transplants and skin grafts?

You didn't have children because you married late. (As did I.) But you are not drawing any distinction between a single person using a donor to have a baby and a married couple using reproductive medicine to address known or unknown medical impediments.

And the overwhelming majority of the objections seem to be what-if statements. What-if someone discarded extra embryos? What if someone lost their embryos through rare and extreme circumstances? There are literally a thousand more direct and obvious and COMMON sins associated with sex and with marriage. What if someone got divorced? What if someone had an affair? What about fornication? What about rape? What about lust? What about feeling societal pressure into getting married but then you weren't really that emotionally attached and now you're just not sure you want to be married? What about same sex marriage? What if two people are married and then one decides to switch genders -- what about marriage or sex then? What about pornography? What about abuse and violence? What about bigamy?

Is the fact that sin is potentially easy with marriage or with sex reason enough to ban them both for always and ever because you can't guarantee that everyone will get it right all of the time? Because there are a million more ways that marriage (and sex) have ACTUALLY gone wrong than with ART or IVF.

I was probably thinking more along the lines of a couple choosing to adopt out a baby/donate to an infertile couple. Doesn't seem to be any room for that in your mind.

If you are dying and going to orphan the child, or if you became a bed bound quadriplegic and could no longer care for a child, or if you get sentenced to prison for 25 years or something like that, there's certainly room in my mind to sympathize with that couple in severe distress and dysfunction to let an infertile couple adopt your child. These are some of the extremely rare exceptions that make sense to me.

But if you are healthy and married, and not the victim of extraordinary disaster, why would anyone adopt out their children? I don't understand this? When you look at it from a pre-technology mindset, why would the mere existence of technology change the morality of the action?

Wanting to become like Job, as described in the Bible, the book of Job chapter 29. Hence the screen name.

You quote me and then respond to me as though I was attacking your choice to pursue IVF using your eggs and your husband's sperm. I am not doing so. Assuming the parameters discussed in this thread (that you are fertilizing only enough to implant), I do not believe this is morally wrong. This thread has not dealt only with your own situation, though. It has also dealt with donor gametes and with the various moral questions raised by reproductive technology, and that's where questions about "going outside your marriage" come in.

It is important to remember for this discussion that when we speak of fertilized eggs, embryos, we speak of human life, the creation of a new person, not an organ of a person, but an actual new person, with a soul.

No one here has made any inference that a liver is a person, or that blood is a human being. There is no moral equivalency between plasma, or a liver, and a human being. That would be like saying a tire is a car; it's not; it's a "part."

The basis of all discussion should reflect that we are speaking of the offspring, the children, of parents. What is done with embryos is morally same is asking "what may I do with my infant, or my toddler?"

Note: I am not say an embryo is an infant (which is a stage of human development). I said this is the "morally equivalent question." He/she is a human being at the most basic level of development, at the greatest level of helplessness and need of protection. An embryo is a human life, with two parents. His or her worth and significance, and his or her parents' obligations respectively all derive from this truth, and discussion should proceed on this foundation IMO.

Wanting to become like Job, as described in the Bible, the book of Job chapter 29. Hence the screen name.

Job29Man wrote:It is important to remember for this discussion that when we speak of fertilized eggs, embryos, we speak of human life, the creation of . . . an actual new person, with a soul. An embryo is a human life, with two parents. His or her worth and significance, and his or her parents' obligations respectively all derive from this truth . . .

Sunny-dee, as I reread your latest response, I see that apparently you are responding defensively, as people may do at times when they are feeling attacked. I spoke to the issue that "I am not attacking you, and neither is anyone else" in the previous post. But I wanted to also reply to some of the other things you said:

And the overwhelming majority of the objections seem to be what-if statements. What-if someone discarded extra embryos? What if someone lost their embryos through rare and extreme circumstances? There are literally a thousand more direct and obvious and COMMON sins associated with sex and with marriage. What if someone got divorced? What if someone had an affair? What about fornication? What about rape? What about lust? What about feeling societal pressure into getting married but then you weren't really that emotionally attached and now you're just not sure you want to be married? What about same sex marriage? What if two people are married and then one decides to switch genders -- what about marriage or sex then? What about pornography? What about abuse and violence? What about bigamy?

This thread is not about "ways a person can sin sexually." No one is saying "bigamy is OK"; it simply is not the point of this thread. However, in the point of this thread, IVF, questions such as extra embryos are not obscure and theoretical. They are basic to the question. It would be as if someone came on this board and said that he and his fiancee were going to live together but were not planning to have sex until they were married--avoiding fornication would be at the very heart of such a discussion. In this discussion, we are talking about avoiding other kinds of sexual sin. The questions of whether it is proper to use the gametes of someone to whom one is not married, what is proper treatment of one's offspring, and how to guard against abuses within the technology (even abuses one might not consider) are all important questions when one talks about this unprecedented technology. If we were on a budgeting forum we would be talking about the finances; we are on a Christian forum, and so we are talking about what Scripture says about the power of life and death and family formation.

I get the desire to bear a child. But just as the desire to marry in the first place must not be so strong that one overlooks what Scripture says about a proper marriage (e.g., one must marry only a believer, and a woman needs to find a man willing to lead and provide for his household), the couple dealing with fertility questions must submit that desire to God's Word on the matter. It's easier to think through some of these questions when you aren't in the middle of them and not emotionally involved, and it's easy to feel like people who aren't emotionally invested right now "don't care." But these are important questions to think through.

As I pointed out, there are ways to responsibly deal with any leftover embryos (which, btw, for great many couples is entirely theoretical -- there is no guarantee that you will get a single viable embryo and no guarantee, past that, that it will implant or lead to a successful pregnancy). First is having other pregnancies *for me* (assuming, again, that I'm able to get embryos). Another is adopting them out to infertile couples who are unable to create an embryo of their own -- even with restrictions on religion and other factors.

The comparison is because SOME PEOPLE may choose to do differently or there could be bizarre and rare instances where there is embryo loss due to a refrigerator malfunction. Yes ... some people can choose to make bad choices in this situation. That does not mean that everyone does. And just because the potential for bad choices exists doesn't mean that a given area is automatically and inherently evil and should be avoided. The fact that there are ethical questions and the potential for sin or harm does not immediately cut people off from marriage, television, vaccines, GMOs, or any of a million other medical and technological and social actions. Such with IVF and other fertility treatments.

Looking specifically at donors -- again, there is nothing in the Bible that indicates anything one way or another. Because that would be impossible because that technology didn't exist. The Bible has a great deal to say about sex, marriage, and commitment, but frequently childbearing isn't even in play there. Part of it is, honestly, because it wasn't an issue in one sense -- it never mattered if *women* didn't have children. If one wife was barren, you simply got another wife or knocked up a servant girl. There are more instances of this than Hagar and Sarah. There's Jacob and Leah, Rachel, and two different servant girls and also Elkanah, Hannah, and Penninah -- with Rachel and Hannah both being big signs of barrenness in poetry. The response of both Jacob and Elkanah was a massive shrug -- they loved their wives but since they were getting it on other places, there's no indication that they cared at all about their wives conceiving. There are barren women who conceived supernaturally and whose husbands apparently never had other wives (Elizabeth and the widow in Elijah's day) but at least with the widow, she was the one who was demanding a child. It's been a big issues for women -- men, not so much.

The same arguments that you're making about donor eggs / sperm have also been made about any kind of donor tissue. There is an extra feeling of intimacy when you're talking about reproductive tissue -- absolutely, and I agree with that. But that doesn't make it inherently evil. It means it is something that needs to be considered.

It also doesn't make people who consider reproductive treatments (and there are a variety of treatments) adulterers, prostitutes, or weak Christians who lack faith in God. If you don't want people to feel attacked, maybe you shouldn't paint with such a broad brush.

Also, maybe you shouldn't consider that someone who has gone through 2.5 years of trying to conceive -- including a miscarriage, 4 rounds of Clomid, 3 failed IUIs, and dozens of physical tests -- hasn't considered the ethical implications of creating embryonic life or the effect of the entire process on myself personally and on my marriage. I *have* considered the physical effects, the emotional effects, the financial burdens, and I've tried to look into options that work for me and for any embryos that I can create. I've been to protests, I've signed petitions, I've supported stricter abortion laws in my state. I am pro-life. Part of that is wanting children for myself; part of it is supporting life even when it is inconvenient.

There are a lot of assumptions being made about that are unfair.

Honestly, a lot of the defensiveness is that I expected people to be a lot more supportive and understanding on this board. We have men who admit to abusing their wives who get more gentle language and attempts at rationale than a couple asking about others' experience with egg donation and infertility. We have ACTUAL ADULTERERS who are not labeled with a scarlet A. And adultery is actually explicitly mentioned in the Bible, with clear guidelines and everything.

I have seen more kindness and support on reddit for this issue than I am seeing here, and that is sad. I thought this was a safe(r) space.

I'm curious. Why did you resurrect this nearly-three-years-old thread if you weren't interested in discussing the morality of the topic? I went back to re-read to see where you jumped in, and you jumped in agreeing in an attack on me that I was teaching false doctrine in saying that egg donation (not IVF itself) was wrong and it would be confusing to the children. The original thread only had me saying it was wrong, nearly everyone else disagreeing with me, and you resurrected the thread to say again that I was the one who was wrong . . . but this time other people joined in to say, "Yes, actually that is wrong to use donor gametes . . . and IVF itself raises some very serious biblical concerns."

I do have sympathy for wanting to bear a child. In my earlier years, when it was still possible to bear my own children but the possibility was slipping away as I stayed single, I left church in tears on more than one occasion, it was too painful to have a father sweet talking his infant in my line of sight, or a young family with several children. I come from a very fertile family, and I watched my siblings marry and have loads of children. I had Christians talk to me in rude ways as they assumed that God must have chosen me for singleness and childlessness and I needed to take it up with God and I guess get right with Him. I spent years taking care of other people'e children in just about every setting imaginable, but other women often saw only that I was "not a mother" and thus couldn't possibly know anything about children and should be expected to keep quiet in any conversation about marriage or children--so in many ways I stood outside the circle of women. Perhaps none of that is as painful as trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant--which is one thing I have not done--but from the age of 10 I yearned to be a mom, so that is definitely within my experience.

But I also have sympathy for the person who longs to marry. I've been there (though my desires to marry were never as deep or painful as my longings for children). But my sympathy for the single person never went so far as to nod in agreement with a friend that at least living with a man is better than living alone, or that this guy is probably not a Christian but he is the only one who has proposed, or that this guy is already sometimes being a jerk toward you but at least he wants to marry you and so you should marry him. Offering sympathy and offering caution are not mutually exclusive, in other words. The people on this thread are very pro-child, and we are offering both.

PS I almost said "I dearly hope that you do end up getting pregnant and bearing a healthy child," but remembering from other threads that you have deeper unresolved marital issues, I can only say I wish things were different for you, and I am sorry for the pain involved in all of it:

Just to say ... I get your need for a break. My husband has a drinking problem. On the one hand it's not serious (no physical abuse, occasional unkind words but no emotional or verbal abuse, no temper tantrums or fists through the wall, no missed days at work -- he's "functional"). On the other hand ... there are the unkind words, the emotional distance, the loneliness because he blacks out after 5pm and doesn't remember entire conversations or makes and breaks promises, waking up 6-9 times a night because he's restless or he falls and hurts himself (or pees somewhere in the house), not to mention the severely reduced interest in sex, at least with me. It's just lonely, and I remember being single and happy and content and feeling free, and there is a huge part of me that wants a separation just because my life would be so much easier. It would be a relief, even just to sleep at night or to feel in control of my time or to not obsess over the health problems he's causing himself or the money he spends (which the worry is on me, but, whatever). It was easier and simpler and (if I'm being honest) happier to be single. (viewtopic.php?f=52&t=68258&p=1060573#p1060573 )

I wrote earlier that we should consider that sometimes God closes a womb and that may be a door to not push against very hard.

Could it be that God does not want to bring a child into some marriages, and that is an act of mercy? Could it be that it does not serve His Kingdom to go to great lengths to bring a baby into some marriages? Often when Sarah and I pursue a path we ask God to direct us by clearly closing doors through which we should not pass. Recently we prayed this way to God about us buying a farm, it became clear over time that, when we tried our best and did all the footwork needed, God was not opening doors for us. Then, out of nowhere and after several years, God showed us a different path, and it all came together.

I'm not saying this is the same for everyone. But, might God do a mercy by not giving a child to a dysfunctional home?

Wanting to become like Job, as described in the Bible, the book of Job chapter 29. Hence the screen name.

sunny-dee wrote:There are a lot of assumptions being made about that are unfair.

I certainly didn't mean to be making any assumptions about you or to treat you in an unsympathetic manner. You have my deepest apologies if I came across that way.

I didn't think anyone else involved in the discussion was making assumptions about you either. We were discussing the ethics of a very complicated subject. We do that fairly frequently on this forum. I know that for myself, organizing my ideas, and then listening to and responding to others disagreements (and agreements) really helps me to learn and to consider a topic more deeply and from more angles. That is all that I saw going on here, I'm very sorry that you felt you were being attacked. I understand your feeling, but I don't think anyone was actually attacking you.

My wife and I have been through some of the infertility circus ourselves. The doc told us that we probably couldn't concieve, and that if we did, he thought the odds of loosing the baby were very high. With some meldical help (nothing a serious as you are having to go through), and a LOT of prayer, we did manage to have a son, who graduated at the top of his high school class this year and is a freshman in college as we speak. (got to slip in a little fatherly brag there!)

Anyway, what I mean is that I have a lot of sympathy for what you are going through. I am praying for you and your family. And I never intended for our interesting theological/ethical discussion to be percieved as a personal attack or judgment upon you or anyone else who was using IVF or similiar techniques.

I think it is very important that these kinds of things be discussed, seriously discussed. And also that we recognize that not everyone is going to agree. We need to be able to discuss topics like this even though there is a lot of disagreement. Perhaps especially when there is a lot of disagreement. And we should be able to do that in a friendly manner. I thought we were. My apologies if you didn't feel that way. I appreciate you resurecting this thread so that we would have the opportunity to discuss it.

Still praying for you and your family. Please pray for me and mine as well.

Job29Man wrote:But, might God do a mercy by not giving a child to a dysfunctional home?

Of course He could. But if God intended to stop a family from having a child via miraculous means, He wouldn't find a doctor with a test tube to be an obstacle to his plans.

And this argument HAS been used in the past to argue that we shouldn't correct any kind of brith defect. After all, God must have WANTED them to be that way. I don't think anyone here would support that point of view, and I don't see that infertility treatments should be blocked on those grounds either. NOT that conception is not a very important ethical issue with its own important details around preserving life. But I don't see "God must have meant them to be barren" as any more valid of an argument here than "God must have intended him to be blind"

Also, for a specifically Biblical example. Gen 30, Rachel tried to use Mandrakes to increase her fertility. Of course, as far as I know, mandrakes do not have any effect on fertility, but the effectiveness of the treatment is beside the point. Rachel THOUGHT she was using a primitive medical technique to address her fertility problems, and no one tried to keep it a secret, and no one , including Jacob who was told about it, condemned her for this attempt in any way.

There are many ethical questions around infertility treatments. But Biblically I can not find any grounds for a blanket condemnation of infertility treatments.

Last edited by Kilarin on Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I've been following this thread since it was made active again with great interest. I had never considered many of the moral/spiritual issues regarding this technology and am thankful to those that have contributed. I had only thought about from a strictly emotional viewpoint when reading about other women's struggles with TTC.

I'm wondering what impact this type of conception has on a person. My younger sister was told by my mother (I have no idea why she would do this, but she did) that when she (my mother) found out she was pregnant with my sister, she wanted to kill herself. That was terribly hurtful to my sister of course. So what does that have to do with infertility? I think I remember awhile back here a woman saying she was considering IVF because her husband wouldn't have sex with her often enough to allow her to conceive naturally. That was really alarming to me because it really seemed to call in to question whether this man really wants to be a father. I guess he could refuse to give his semen, but what if he doesn't really want to, but gives in to his wife and later resents the child and or his wife? How will that impact their family and the child's development? If the child ever found out he was conceived in a petri dish because his father just wasn't excited enough about having a child to conceive naturally, wouldn't that be really hurtful?

Job, thanks for your thoughts about the responsibility of parents. I had never even thought of those issues and they're so very important. I really like what you said about it being wise to consider not pushing too hard against a door God has closed. The hard part is figuring out where that line is. Paul went through so many struggles that some may have considered him pushing too hard, but it was him persevering in times of hardship. I'm not sure there are any clear cut answers here, but so much that needs to be considered regarding this technology.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Isaiah 26:3

I think I need to clarify something important.I have been defending the position that a couple who is suffering from medical infertility should feel free to pursue ethical medical solutions to that problem.And I still feel that that is true. But it is only true within a framework of assuming you are submitting yourself to God's will. And I never clarified that.

I never had much of a biological clock. But my wife's biological alarm clark started ringing so loud that she could hardly hear anything else. And so we started trying to concieve, but found our path blocked. We, of course, prayed about it. A lot.But eventually my wife realized that she had to change her prayers. She was feeling so frustrated, so CRIPPLED by her inability to have a child, that she had to start asking God for something more than just "Please let me have a baby." Her prayers shifted to: "God, please let me have a child, and if Your answer to that is no, then you must give me the strength and the courage to live a happy and fulfilled life with that answer. Because I can not do it without You."

It wasn't until we became willing to accept God's answer of "NO" to involve just as much of a miracle as His answer of "YES" would be that she finally found peace.

And in that peace, God chose to give us a child. But if He had said no, we were ready to accept His power in our lives to give us peace with that answer.

ANY Christian couple who is considering having a child, fertile or infertile, should be submitting the entire situation to God's will. God knows if this is the right time, the right place, the right environment for the miracle of a new child. And God ALSO knows if this is the right time, place, and envrionment for giving us the miracle of a new heart with the courage to accept His "No" and still move forward in His strength.

One example of where technology is headed, with the writer of the article clearly saying "Why wouldn't you be able to modify embyros?" Note, BTW, that it is legal to play around with embryos (human life) as long as you don't implant them to have a chance to be born. (No, I don't think they should be implanted--but neither do I think this research is ethical, and human embryos are not toys you play with and then throw away.)

Just popped in to say! That we successfully had a baby and now thanks to God we have a family.

We ended up prayerfully doing Embryo Adoption, to give the chance of life to a frozen embryo! My pregnancy was difficult and we were unsure if our baby would make it alive to birth. Lots of bleeding, high blood pressure, low placenta, breech, other issues ongoing. But God was faithful to His Word to make the barren woman a joyful mother to her child. She is the light and love of our lives! God was so merciful to bless us with this beautiful, healthy, amazing child. She is the child we were meant to give life to, and to raise. She couldn't be more loved!

We encourage those with infertility issues to pursue options. God is surely on His throne & the giver of all gifts of Life.

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ...And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight" Phil 1:3,4,9

I am overjoyed to hear of the birth of your precious baby! Please accept this father and Pastor's blessing upon your family. If I were there I would take your daughter from your arms and hold her before the LORD in the gathering of His saints, and I would gather with you and speak to the LORD and pray...

May God bless your daughter with good health, intelligence, happiness, long life and salvation in Christ Jesus.May you and your husband grow and mature in the faith, the faith in things unseen, the invisible hand of God.

May you grow as a family into unity, love and respect for each other.May you ALL honor God in all that you do.

May God bless and protect you, may He make His face to shine upon you.May the LORD work in all of your lives to advance His Kingdom on earth.

(Now I turn towards the congregation and with my hands I lift your daughter up towards Heaven)

And now LORD I ask that you protect this precious child of Yours from the Adversary.I ask You O God to plant a hedge of protective thorns around this girl's life to turn aside the attacks of the Enemy.

May she grow a heart of compassion towards the weak, and speak with kindness on her tongue.May she lift her hand in assistance to the poor and may she speak for the voiceless.

And dear LORD I pray now for the future husband of this little girl.Wherever he is O God, whether he already lives or is yet to be born,Create in him a clean heart, and bring him to her in Your timing and in Your way.And bring them together in a marriage that will always honor You and be a testimony to their faith.

In the name of Jesus Christ, our LORD, and through the power of Your Holy Spirit I ask these things O LORD.Amen.

Wanting to become like Job, as described in the Bible, the book of Job chapter 29. Hence the screen name.